Hand in hand, how best friends died as their school disintegrated in Oklahoma tornado

Oklahoma tornado: Hand in hand, how best friends died as their school disintegrated

Kyle Davis, a blond-haired ball of eight-year-old energy who loved to sing in his church choir and play football, was killed when a roofing beam struck his neck as he sheltered in a school corridor.

Antonia Lee Candelaria and Emily Conatzer, inseparable nine-year-old best friends in life, died hand-in-hand in the rubble.

And Janae Hornsby, nine, described by her father as “sunshine on a rainy day,” was also among the seven pupils killed when Plaza Towers elementary school in Moore, Oklahoma, was flattened by Monday’s tornado. The number of fatalities caused by the massive storm which struck the city remained at 24 yesterday, with more than 300 injured. Most had died from suffocation and crush injuries and, contrary to earlier reports, the children at Plaza Towers did not drown in a basement but instead succumbed to the maelstrom above.

Their deaths have prompted debate and controversy about why a school in the middle of America’s tornado alley did not have a storm shelter or safe room.

As the names of the dead became public, and as it was announced that President Barack Obama would visit the devastated town on Sunday, loved ones paid tribute to those they had lost. Kyle’s mother Mikki said she would place his football trophies around his casket for his funeral.

Megan Futrell, 29, a mother of two, was found hugging her four-month-old son in the ruins of a 7-Eleven grocery store where they both died. He was the youngest victim.

Herman Bhonde, 65, was the oldest named so far. He was clinging to his wife Jerrie in the shower of their bathroom as they tried to ride out the storm. “The house totally disappeared,” Mrs Bhonde said from her hospital bed. “Walls were hitting me. I was knocked on the floor. I looked around for my husband. I couldn’t find him.”

But even as the desperately sad stories of the dead emerged, so did remarkable accounts of heroism by teachers who saved countless lives.

At Plaza Towers and Briarwood elementary schools, several teachers used their bodies as human shields to protect pupils who were crouching in the tornado drill position they had practised so often.

Jennifer Doan, 30, suffered a fractured spine and fractured sternum and cuts across her body when she was trapped in rubble as she cradled two children in her arms at Plaza Towers.

From her hospital bed, Miss Doan, who is pregnant, recalled how she reassured a boy in her arms as rescuers made their way to them.

“I was just telling him to keep calm and that they would come, and he just kept telling me that he couldn’t breathe and he didn’t want to die,” she said. “I don’t know how long we were stuck, and somebody finally came and dug some stuff from above my head and reached down for me.”

The boy survived his injuries, as has Miss Doan’s unborn child. But it was only yesterday that she learned that seven of the third-graders she taught had died nearby.

Less than a mile away, teachers at Briarwood displayed similar calm bravery as they too made last-minute life-saving decisions.

Waynel Mayes, a first-grade teacher, told CNN that she distracted her students with songs and games. “I just got all the desks and I told the kids that we were going to play worms,” she said, referring to a children’s game.

“I told them to get underneath the desks, and I put them two by two, and I said, OK, we’re going to play our musical instruments, and we’re going to play worms, and we’re going to play as loud as we can.

“I told them to sing as loud as they could and if they got scared, they could scream.”

The roof was peeled away above them. If they had glanced up, they would have seen a debris-filled maelstrom, with cars and even horses from a nearby farm, tossed around like toys above their heads. All, however, lived.

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